Opinion: A Tragic Hero

Columnist Bill McGurn on whether CIA Director David Petraeus should have and needed to resign. Photo credit: Getty Images.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... the ... I ... welcome to Opinion Journal why it on Dan Henninger well the resignation of the art director David betray us is still reverberating all across Washington and here to discuss it with me is our main Street Columnist Bill McGurn and then I don't know ... well of by all means this is a personal tragedy for general deterrence and his family but ... you have been talking to folks about it you think there are some issues to the questions that ... do still need to be addressed to John Wright trades themselves ... right ... look it's it's a deeply human tragedy especially for the innocent the lines ... the children and husbands who were innocent and they'll have their private humiliation dragged out in public ... you when your public employee especially in a sensitive ... position like that ... sometimes your private affairs become public you know and and this especially ... unlike other in Paris I think because another fares tantalizing air with his driver ... she was in writing his biography ... um ... didn't have access to his email account ... she is said to the classified documents ... in her email is around her computer yet ... that they are satisfied he didn't give them to work but someone did get them to were ... we we really should know who gave it to and did she get those ... because he was in this privileged position ... on a Noro value but I don't I don't like my class ... minstrel form around the world in Chino right well there is a smaller question ... which of the trip was leading him to G mail account ... and ... your point ... I would say the phrase private life and C I a director or a contradiction in terms exactly lot of all people and go a lot of people on you know in government ... the security people didn't have ... a private accounts you may be the peak of the private use it to say all pickup Susie header softball game to wipe it apart from that ... PPI details in there that foreign intelligence services with love having a presumed are trying to read I presume ... they're trying to get access to these things now ... into send if the reports are true ... hundreds ... of e mails to this this is is just ... astounding to me know ... what you think oh ... traders should know how to address this in a public forum ... PS dragged out in a public forum ... but I think is truthfulness on things I mean they're a lot of questions the initial reports suggested that the fair started in Afghanistan ... when ... she was traveling there now his friends are saying ... that it started after he left the army which would be ... much better for him because it's a crime I believe ... if it happened while he was in the arm ... oh we just have to hope a new truthfulness on one thing ... affects the credibility of the other look what we mostly care about ... what's the fun out there ... and also on ... what he thought about him causing him we wanna know when he ... spoke to the Senate behind closed doors for the Congress afterward ... he seemed to be endorsing the video aspect ... was any news plane on his mind ... I mean we those are those of very very public ... the question we now have this woman ... it shone and had a iam ... lecture ... talking about prisons or something it can cost you know it's not clear ... whether she was relying on documents when she was implying she knew a lot more than she did ... that ... these have become questions ... because of this and and and we deserve answers